“Foreign article of the week”-- The influential British news magazine, The Week

“This is a devastating expose by Tom Gross: The BBC’s
Orwellian fixing of language – by going in and changing online wordage
after the fact – is particularly amusing, and particularly disturbing”-- Andrew Sullivan, on his website

“As Tom Gross explains in the Jerusalem Post, there’s
nothing like getting it on your own chin to find out that it hurts”-- The Forward (New York)

“A remarkable account by Tom Gross of airbrushing at
the BBC”-- Glenn Reynolds, on his popular website Instapundit

“Tom Gross writes a wonderful op-ed in the Jerusalem
Post about the BBC’s brief rediscovery of the word terrorist”-- Jeff Jarvis, on his leading website, BuzzMachine

“As Tom Gross points out in the Jerusalem Post, the
BBC continues to do its considerable bit to aid and abet the war against
the West. Not only has it decided that terrorism does not exist, but current
affairs programme after programme seeks to minimize or excuse Islamic terrorism
and blame the West instead”-- Melanie Phillips, columnist, (London) Daily Mail

“This is a must-read piece”-- Bestselling author Naomi Ragen

The BBC discovers ‘terrorism,’ briefly

Suicide bombing seems different when closer to home

By Tom Gross
July 12, 2005

(Opinion Page)

Despite the force of the bus bomb blast,
some top deck passengers survived

INTRODUCTORY NOTE

On July 7, 2005, Britain suffered its first suicide bomb attacks. 52 people
were killed on London’s transport system, and all of a sudden, terms
that British media use when reporting suicide attacks on Israeli civilians
were nowhere to be seen. “Guerrilla,” “militant,”
“activist” and “fighter” were replaced with the
words “terrorism” and “terrorist.”

But not for long. The following day the BBC subtly and retroactively started
to alter the text of stories on its website in order to remove the word
“terrorist” to describe those behind the London bombings. Stalin
himself could hardly have done a better rewrite job.

Meanwhile, the world’s leading news agency, the Associated Press,
disseminated a 9/11-style “Israel-knew-in-advance” libel about
the London bombs, spawning various anti-Semitic conspiracy theories on extremist
websites.

-- Tom Gross

THE ARTICLE: THE BBC DISCOVERS ‘TERRORISM,’
BRIEFLY

WHEN it happens on your own
doorstep, in very familiar settings like the London “Tube” or
on a traditional red double-decker bus, right alongside the site of a building
where Charles Dickens once lived, terrorism seems very different than it
does when innocent people are murdered elsewhere.

Britain’s first bus bombing took place barely half a mile from the
BBC’s central London headquarters, and for a day or so after last
Thursday’s multiple bomb attacks, the BBC, the influential leftist
daily the Guardian, and even the British-based global news agency Reuters,
all seemed to suddenly discover the words “terrorism” and “terrorist.”
In Saturday’s Guardian, for example, one or other of these words appeared
on each of the first eleven pages.

Barely half a mile from the BBC’s
central London headquarters

In marked contrast to BBC reports about bombs on public transport in Israel
– bombs which in some cases were even worse than those in London,
since some were specifically aimed at children, and most were packed with
nails, screws, glass and specially-sharpened metal shards in order to maximize
injuries – terms like “guerrilla,” “militant,”
“activist” or “fighter” were suddenly nowhere to
be seen.

Nor – again in contrast to their coverage of Israel – did BBC
correspondents, on either their domestic or international services, provide
sympathetic accounts of the likely perpetrators, or explain to viewers that
we must “understand” their “grievances”. Instead
they did what an objective news organization should do: just report on the
attacks, and their atrocious nature, and on the sufferings of the victims.

“A BARRIER TO UNDERSTANDING”

The world’s premier broadcast network appeared to throw away its
own ridiculous “BBC Producer’s Guidelines”. BBC online
reports, for example, had headlines such as “Terror of passengers
stuck on tube” and “London Rocked by Terror Attacks.”

BBC executives had previously insisted that for the sake of what they call
“even-handedness” terrorists should not be called terrorists.
Their Guidelines state: “The word ‘terrorist’ itself can
be a barrier to understanding... We should try to avoid the term, while
we report the facts as we know them.”

But the hope of many of the British taxpayers forced to fund the BBC that
it had finally come to its senses and would henceforth call terror by its
proper name, turned out to be short-lived. By Friday, the BBC’s world
service was slowly reverting to its old habits, both on air and on line.
(Its domestic news broadcasts have for the time being continued using the
word “terrorist.”)

Presumably hoping that no one would notice, the BBC subtly and retroactively
altered its initial texts about the bombs on both it British and international
websites. Unfortunately for the BBC, however, previous versions of its webpages
remained easily accessible to all on Google, and enterprising British bloggers,
long-fed up with the BBC’s bias, recorded the changes.

“Harry’s Place” noted, for example, that on Thursday
evening a BBC News webpage headlined “Bus man may have seen terrorist,”
began “A bus passenger says he may have seen one of those responsible
for the terrorist bomb attacks in London. Richard Jones, from Binfield,
had got a bus just before it was blown up...”

This Piccadilly line train carriage
was wrecked in one of the blasts

But on Friday at 10.14 am GMT, that webpage was suddenly changed. The headline
now reads “Passenger believes he saw bomber”, and the text begins
“A bus passenger says he may have seen one of those responsible for
the bomb attacks in London. Richard Jones, from Binfield, had got a bus
just before it was blown up...”

Early on Friday morning another BBC webpage, headlined “Testing the
underground mood,” spoke of “the worst terrorist atrocity Britain
has seen.” But at 12.08 GMT, while the rest of the article was left
untouched, those words were replaced by “the worst peacetime bomb
attacks Britain has seen.”

There are other examples of similar censorship occurring at the BBC. Stalin
himself could hardly have done a better job of overseeing its award-winning
website.

“LET’S BLAME THE JEWS”

In its round-up of world reactions, BBC online was also quick to highlight
the views of conspiracy theorists. The very first article listed by the
BBC started by quoting Iranian cleric Ayatollah Mohammad Emami-Kashani saying
Israel was behind the London attacks, followed by a commentary on Iranian
state radio explicitly blaming the Mossad.

Ayatollah Mohammad
Emami-Kashani

With its unprecedented worldwide news reach (its radio service alone, broadcasting
in 43 languages, attracts over 150 million listeners), BBC coverage is important
in formulating worldwide public opinion.

But even more influential – and in respect to the London terror attacks,
far more irresponsible – was the Associated Press (AP).

The AP played into the hands of anti-Semites by irresponsibly running a
bogus “Israel advance warning” story on its international newswire
shortly after the London attacks. Although the story has since been retracted
by the AP, the damage has been done. As was the case after 9/11, a thousand
“Israel knew”-style conspiracy theories have already been spawned
on extreme rightist and leftist websites worldwide.

The AP story headlined “Netanyahu Changed Plans Due to Warning,”
written by Amy Teibel of the AP Jerusalem bureau, and alleging that Benjamin
Netanyahu, who was in London for an economic conference, was tipped off
“minutes before Thursday’s explosions,” was put out by
the AP on their worldwide news wires at 11.14 am GMT (7.14 am EST) on Thursday.

BLACK PROPAGANDA

Fox News ran the AP story on air at 7:50 am New York time. AP’s story
also appeared on the websites of over 100 credible news outlets in the US,
Canada, Ireland, India and elsewhere. More disturbingly it appeared on Al
Jazeera and other Middle East media.

How could any serious editor or reporter not see that this was “black
propaganda” and a replay of the post-9/11 libels? And how could the
AP Jerusalem Bureau Chief not have checked before running it?

Robert Fisk of the Independent:
Osama bin Laden is a fan

But despite the various shortcomings in the coverage of the London bombs,
there was also much resolute and sensible commentary, not just from the
right and center but from some on the left too.

While the usual suspects, such as the notorious Robert Fisk of the Independent
(who was singled out as a journalist one could admire in Osama bin Laden’s
video message last October), immediately blamed Tony Blair and George Bush
for bringing the bombs upon London, most commentators saw the atrocities
for what they were.

“Face up to the truth,” wrote Nick Cohen, a leading columnist
for The Observer, the Sunday sister paper of The Guardian. Addressing what
he called “my world of liberal London,” Cohen said “We
all know who was to blame for Thursday’s murders... and it wasn’t
Bush and Blair.”

(The writer is a former Jerusalem correspondent for the Sunday Telegraph.)